5 Ways to Make New Year’s Resolutions REALLY Pay Off

From dieting to traveling, those promises create lots of spending

Find a Better Job

This resolution might be a bit less popular nowadays: When unemployment is high, people usually are more concerned with keeping what they have. But plenty of workers still have ambition, and plenty more just aren’t making as much as they’d like.

LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD) — essentially the Facebook (NYSE:FB) of professional networking — has been a rare social stock success with roughly 50% year-to-date gains. LNKD has been helped by its engaged two-way user base: job seekers and employers looking for workers who are, well, at least Internet-savvy enough to use LinkedIn.

Once New Year’s rolls around, expect many Americans to head to LNKD to refresh their online resumes, and expect companies to start using LinkedIn’s “hiring solutions” for the usually brisk January hiring surge.

Other people might be looking to hit the books, either to expand their knowledge in their current field or to switch career tracks. Cue the for-profit universities, which offer flexible schedules via night and online classes. Major players in this field include University of Phoenix parent Apollo Group (NASDAQ:APOL) and DeVry (NYSE:DV).

However, while it would stand to reason that such educators would benefit from a broadly renewed desire to climb the corporate ladder, for-profits have been struggling with enrollment of late. Both APOL and DV reported fewer new students in their most recent quarters, as did ITT Educational Services (NYSE:ESI).